Rahul is walking over. He has a plate of food in his hand.

‘This is for you. I didn’t want you to go hungry. Not when you’re eating for two.’

He hands Mia the plate of food and she thanks him with a mini tear in her eye. It’s a beautiful plate of food. It’s crammed with all the good things. I have my eyes on the fancy sausage roll.

Rahul retreats, probably back into the kitchen.

‘The shittiest thing about being pregnant is that you’re only actually meant to eat about two hundred extra calories a day.’ She picks up what looks like an onion bhaji. ‘But if people don’t know and feed me extra, I won’t correct them.’

She takes a bite and moves the plate closer to me, a gesture that says it’s OK for me to take something. I go for the sausage roll and look up to confirm my choice is acceptable to her. She nods yes.

I take a bite. It’s delicious. He’s put some cranberry in there, and the pastry is so buttery and flaky.

‘So what’s been happening with the cards?’

I’m sure I look like a hamster when I smile, but I can’t help it. I want to smile, but I still have quite a lot of sausage roll in my mouth. Once I swallow the sausage roll, I fill her in on my decision to go down to part-time, all the new orders, the popularity of the personalized boasts in the post and, hot off the press – ‘Do you remember that person I met at the reunion drinks? The cool one with the husband who doted on her? Michelle?’

Mia simply shakes her head. She was too busy talking to the Queen of the Cardigans to notice my new girl-crush.

‘Well, she’s running a Christmas pop-up next weekend featuring a bunch of independent crafters, makers, artists and the like, and she asked if she could sell my cards.’

‘That’s great!’

I nod. ‘It is, and if they do well, she would look to stock them in her stores on a more permanent basis. I thought she only had the one shop, but she has, like, five, so this could be really good for me.’

‘That’s amazing! I am so proud of you!’

I just nod. I see Mark in the corner.

‘So, how’s the bowl collection coming?’

Her demeanour changes impressively quickly. She looks down, as if she’s slightly ashamed.

‘Don’t talk to me about the bowls.’

‘Why can’t I talk to you about the bowls?’

‘Because I feel really guilty about the bowls.’

‘How on earth can you feel guilty about the bowls?’ We’ve said the word ‘bowls’ so many times that it’s started to sound wrong.

‘Because I found out why he’s collecting them and it turns out I’m a horrible human.’

I dip my chin and look up at her. I know she’s done something bad. ‘Go on …’

She sighs and lets it out. ‘After I threw one at his head, he informed me that, apparently, many years ago I made some offhand, totally unremarkable comment about being pregnant and really looking forward to eating ramen out of a bowl that’s resting on my baby bump. And so that’s why Mark has been collecting all the bowls. He wants to make sure that when my bump is big enough, I have the perfect bowl to eat ramen out of.’